GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Alex Deleon Viewed at the 2003 Karlovy Vary festival. In competition, and the grand prize winner in my book whether or not it is so recognized by the jury: The French-Japanese co-production, "STUPEUR AT TREMBLEMENT" (Fear and Trembling) by French veteran Alain Corneau is the story of a young lady from Belgian, Amélie, (Sylvie Testud) who was born and partly raised in Japan and therefore speaks the language perfectly. When she returns to her "native" Japan as a young adult she takes a job in a Japanese mega-company which might as well be Mitsubushi (although it's called Yumimoto Ltd. in the film) while entertaining romantic thoughts of integrating herself into the society she loved so much as a child. To say she has difficulties gaining acceptance -- in fact she never does -- would be the understatement of the year. This film cuts to the quick of the perfect insanity of Japanese society like a yakuza short sword, in a way that is at times hilarious, at others painful. Originally hired as a translator because of her fluency in Japanese and presumed ability to help the Japanese communicate with foreign clients, she is soon told that it would make the natives uncomfortable to be understood fully by a white person, so she is required to conceal her language ability in the presence of Japanese visitors and relegated to more and more trivial tasks. Little by little She is reduced to the status of a maid and a tea server and constantly humiliated, finally becoming little more than a doormat for the racial prejudice of the company salary men.Knowing too much Japanese is worse, it turns out, than not knowing anything at all. Her dreams of integration are brutally squashed. In a way this is a kind of companion piece to "American Splendour" in the manner by which it ruthlessly satirizes accepted norms of behavior and societal face values. I imagine that the Japanese themselves will be very uncomfortable with this film, and surely, any "gaijin" (Westerner) who, like myself, has lived extensively in Japan, will acutely re-remember the reasons why they finally packed it in and left that "perfect society" after a long initial period of grace and thrall. Actress Sylvie Testud turns in a virtuoso performance in the central role and must have had excellent language coaching. Apart from her the entire cast is Japanese imparting to the film a near documentary aura of authenticity. This movie should be a basic requirement in any course of study aimed at introducing Japanese society and culture.

Robert As a long-time Japanophile and frequent visitor to Japan, I really wanted to enjoy "Fear and Trembling". Alas, the film ruined much of that potential for me. But first the pros: the social and business dynamics depicted are spot-on. The acting -- particularly by Tsuji Kaori -- is excellent. The office set where 99% of the film takes place, is utterly believable (for actually being filmed in Paris). The story has great potential, especially for being semi-autobiographical.So, what are the cons? First, the pacing. For a film whose cover blurb compares it to "Lost in Translation", it has few of that films transcendent passages. The latter's pacing is poetic. The former's is glacial. They could've cut at least 15 minutes of unnecessarily long scenes from this and ended up with a better film for it. Second, the protagonist. Passive, slovenly, usually dim-witted, I found it impossible to sympathize with her plight, or even to look at her.And third -- and most inexplicable -- the fact that she was utterly, bloody-mindedly ignorant of Japanese customs. The notion that she could speak idiomatic Japanese but not have learned even the basics of Japanese business etiquette is simply absurd. She knew enough to always address people by their proper titles, but not enough to *bow* when her bosses gave her an order?! She knew that blowing one's nose in front of another person was rude, but didn't know that she should never argue with her superiors?! She knew that she should accept blame for her own failures, but didn't know that staring at people is seen as highly aggressive?! Simply unbelievable.I suppose that many people watching "Fear and Trembling" who are ignorant of Japanese etiquette and protocol might not have as much trouble with these, but for those who *do* understand the basics of social interaction and hierarchy in Japan, her behavior goes from being sympathetic to unbearable. I ended up rooting for those who were beating her down, simply because she was such an "ugly American" (for being Belgian) an utter dolt. Of course, your mileage may vary.

dromasca Made in the same year as Sofia Coppola's film 'Lost in Translation' 'Stupeurs et tremblements' deals with the same cultural gap that faces Westerners who get in contact with the Japanese society. The difference in the approach is that while Coppola's heroes are in Japan on obviously temporary trips, the Amélie in this autobiographical movie is really the successful Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb telling the story of her tentative to live as a Westerner in the Japan of her birth, and to integrate in the life of a great Japanese corporation. She loves and admires Japan, and thinks that she understands it and aims to integrate into it.One has to hope that life in a Japanese workplace is not or is no longer the one described in this film whose action takes place in the 1990. Brutality, chauvinism and xenophobia seem to dominate the human relations, while the work relations seem to be reigned in by absolute respect for hierarchy which prevails on any tentative to work more efficiently, or to have some fun at the workplace or just to develop a human relation with her colleagues. The total admiration of Amélie for the place, and for her female manager is answered with brutality and humiliations, and only a total reprimand of any personal ambitions and transition into submission helps her survive the one year of her Japanese career. The end seems to suggest that the system is stronger than anything - with the general manager of the company having understood all that is going on but refusing to change anything, and with her supervisor sending her remotely a sign of humanity, but only long after the working relations have ended.I was not crazy about the film making of Alain Corneau, he seems to be too much in love with the magic of the texts of Amélie Nothomb, one of the most inventive and original novelists writing in French nowadays, and has thus used to many off-screen comments taken from the text of the novel, without finding any original equivalent in cinema language. On the other hand Sylvie Testud is superb, when one says Amelie I hear Audrey Tautou, and well, Sylvie is up to challenging Audrey Tautou as one of the best and most charming French actresses today.I just keep imagining what Sofia Coppola would have made of this story.

thither Being a dumb yank, I'd never even heard of the book this movie was based on, so I saw it based on a blurb describing it as similar to Office Space and Lost in Translation. With that in mind, I was somewhat disappointed by Fear and Trembling (no relationship to the Kierkegaard book of the same name).I think my main problem was that the protagonist seemed like a blank slate, just as inscrutable in her own way as the Western stereotype of Japanese and other Asian people. She endures a variety of awful humiliations, but we get barely any insight at all into why she does so, apart from a vague longing to be Japanese. There is a little bit of flowery language about the city of Nara at the beginning, and we learn that she lived there as a child, but there is very little indication of what is driving her, in the present day, to integrate herself into a business culture which she obviously finds deeply unpleasant.Compounding this is that the protagonist is never seen outside of the environment of the office. It's fine to keep the focus there, but a little indication with how she interacts with the part of Japan that is outside the office building could have greatly increased our understanding of the character.At its worst, Fear and Trembling is a dour indictment of petty office politics which can doubtless be found in any large corporate headquarters. Things like backstabbing colleagues, autocratic and incompetent bosses, and spiteful busywork being assigned to hapless underlings are certainly not things that are unique to Japanese culture. While some episodes do cast a little illumination on (the writer's take on) that culture, for the most part they could take place anywhere. This fact makes the protagonist's persistence seem all the more puzzling.The movie does have its moments, though. When it lets its hair down a little bit (as in an early scene involving calendars, or in a repeated one featuring the protagonist flying above the city) there is a good amount of humor and levity to be found, and the performances are all fairly good. Overall it's a worthy, but flawed, effort.